Ekim Tan on Urban Games

Critical summary - Friday May 27th - presentation by Ekim Tan

Hunch
Both completely planned and spontaneous developed new cities seem to survive quite well. Almere and Istanbul are developed in a completely different way, but produce both brisk urban densities which attract more and more inhabitants. How should these cities develop? Can we simulate development by using the human brain, instead of computer models with a given amount of parameters? Can we develop the city using collective intelligence and self-organization?
Ekim Tan explores in her PHD the potential of urban games in city development. Together with her partners she developed a network around this theme, The Responsive City.

Revival of the 70s?
At first sight one could think that the ideas of co-creation, rooted in in 70s, are merged with the possibilities of the digital realm of today. Ekim showed the design for the Malaguiera Quarter by Siza as an early example of participatory planning. The credits of this project should go to the housing association, who allows the residents to alter their homes over time. Siza did definitely design a grammar of variations (see drawing), but included a set of restricting rules as well (flat roofs, stairways of wood or painted steel and whitewashed exterior plaster, ornaments in stucco protrude to a maximum of 1 cm).
Cooperative planning models of the 70s were based upon a political ideology; everyone, rich and poor, should be able to determine what his/her house looks like. Common people know best how to design a house. The task of designing was de-professionalized. There is a beautiful movie on the Molenvliet project in Papendrecht, built according to the Open Building idea of Habraken, where architect Frans van der Werf draws plans instructed by future residents.
Recent models are based upon the observation that users become smarter and smarter, using internet they can turn themselves into semi-professionals. There is no paradigm behind this development, it is an amoral power of the people and therefore quite different from the 70s.

Cross case comparison
The PHD of Ekim is based upon a set of games. In these games the participants, often with different backgrounds, collaborate in order to achieve a goal. The goal is to develop the city collectively. The power and potential of the game a clear. Instead of confronting information in order to reach consensus, information is collected and developed in a more open source way of working.

Workshops are held in Almere, Istanbul, Rotterdam and soon Amsterdam as well. It is not completely clear why these four cities are picked as samples to develop a theory. The set-up differs from workshop to workshop as well. In one workshop the participants just work together, in another one they can negotiate in smaller groups during breaks as well. The type of participants seem to vary. As a result cross case comparison of results must be pretty difficult. On the other hand, additional information gathered is absolutely interesting! The idea to rule out a type of participant for example, market parties in Almere (municipality vs. residents) or the municipality in Amsterdam (market parties vs. stakeholders), creates new types of collaborations and questions current networks.

Scenario developing vs. scenario testing
The research produces an attractive scenario how the physical and virtual world can be combined in the future. It creates opportunities for new collaborations and unexpected developments. How do people work together, share information, develop ideas initiated by others, etc. It would be interesting to extend this research on scenario developing to scenario testing. What kind of physical outcome does this method produce? Is it desirable? Are both explicit and implicit goals achieved? How does the model incorporate societal values or common goods? In short: to evaluate the product together with the process.

Hello again everybody!

After today's lecture in my mind appeared some questions I hadn't thought before, and some I want to clarify for myself and my thesis. ( I want to write about the profession of architect, what purposes it should "serve", and by doing this I want to formulate general idea ,what kind of methodology an architect can use to create architecture, of course it will be my humble point of view :)) regarding to this I'd like to ask all of you, maybe you know where I can find different viewpoints about the role of architect, or some definitions of architectural discipline (no matter it is made by an architect, writer or philosopher). Now back to my questions. Maybe it will be easy for you to give me answers if I formulate it in list.

1. When we preserve different built heritage, do we act like this mostly because we identify our selves whit it, and if we let time, or other people to destroy it we can lose part of our own? (if it is so, then any object can become object of identification, for example specific tree, or stone and so on. Is it true?)

2. When you said today that architecture can be perceived by touching the surface, texture, or by the noise of screaming foorstop of wooden stairs such feelings are part of our memories which can be important for us personally, but how important can it be for future generation which can have different values and visions? are there some values thas can last forever?

3. what do you think what is the most intelligible way to transfer your ideas?

Everyone are welcome to answer if you have enough time.

Thank you in advance for attention,

Irakli